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Pugliese "Pillow Bread"

Pugliese "Pillow Bread"

While traveling for business the last two weeks in China, as usual I read my favorite website, www.thefreshloaf.com and couldn't wait to get home to try some new recipes. One of the recipes I loved was Varda's Pugliese Revisited. The crumb photo of her bread looked like cotton candy that melted in your mouth.

I wanted to try to duplicate the same results that Varda achieved and I followed her recipe pretty close, only replacing the AP flour with KAF French style flour and some of the Durum with Kamut flour. I decided to also double the recipe and made one large loaf.

I think I was suffering from the jet lag when making this and almost left out about 70 grams of water. After mixing the dough I realized something was wrong when it seemed too dry for what's such a high hydration dough. Fortunately I was able to add the remaining water before it was too late and the final bread came out as good as I could have hoped.

The bread is light as a feather and has a great nutty flavor with a nice crisp crust.

Even though this dough is so wet it was not hard to work with at all and I highly recommend you give it a try.

Levain Directions

Mix all the levain ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap. Let it sit at room temperature for 3.5 hours or until the starter has doubled. You don't want the levain to develop too much sour so you want to use this in the recipe right away.

Either use in the main dough immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day before using.

Main Dough Procedure

Mix the levain with the water and add the flours, yeast and salt and mix in your mixer for 6 minutes increasing the speed from 1 through speed 4. The dough should clean the bowl but will be wet and sticky. Place the dough in a well oiled covered bowl and do stretch and folds every 1/2 hour three times while letting the dough bulk ferment for a total of 2.45 hours. I used my proofer set at 80 degrees but room temperature should be fine.

Next shape into a boule on your work surface. The dough should feel like a "squishy balloon" (Varda's words :0). Proof in a well floured basket or bowl and cover with a moist towel or plastic wrap and let it rest for 1 hour until it doubles.

In the mean time pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees F. and prepare it for steam. I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf. I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.

This bread does not need to be scored so when ready to bake, place it on parchment paper on your peel and then add 1 cup of boiling water to your steam pan or follow your own steam procedure.

After 1 minute lower the temperature to 450 degrees. Bake for 35-50 minutes until the crust is nice and brown and the internal temperature of the bread is 205 degrees.

Take the bread out of the oven when done and let it cool on a bakers rack before for at least 2 hours before eating.

The crumb of this bread is like a pillow and is the lightest and most airy I have ever tasted.

Hi Ian, Good to see you back. I do not have a bead on the flavor kamut would contribute, but it sure looks good. Also wonder about the difference between the KAAP and the french flour. French flour is softer? So perhaps a flatter profile? Nice baking! -Varda

Thanks Varda...yes, the French flour is a lower protein flour, which works great with bagguettes and tender breads like this one. The Kamut is similar to the Durum. I needed to use it since I had a senior moment when ordering my last bunch of flour from KAF. I ordered the Semolina flour which is best for pasta and not bread since it is much coarser. Looks like I need to make some pasta now! Anyway, the Kamut is very nutty tasting and makes a good substitution. It's a bit coarser than the Durum.

The main reason why my profile was slightly flatter than yous is that I doubled the recipe and made on big loaf. In any case, I was very happy with the result except for when the butter I was using for toast fell through the holes onto my shirt :0. Thanks for your great formula and procedure.

could have used a decent pillow on that long flight to China! That crumb looks like one that 'Crumby Baker' Varda would make. Nicely done. Good to see you didn't loose your 'pillow touch ' while away. This is the bread Italian's grill on an open flame and then either rub garlic on it to sop up the pasta sauce or make a bruschetta out of it, Both sound pretty good right now since i haven't had breakfast.,

I just sifted the atta out some durum atta to put onto the last batch of Toadies. I have a little bit of Desert Durum and some regular durum semolina around somewhere and this might be as good a place to use it as any.

Thanks DA. You need to try this one. Maybe without the Yeast and let me know what you think. Next time I will try it with just SD or maybe some YW, but I will make this one again as it came out as good as I could hope.

highly recommended! wow, the picture of the crumb already conviced me! yep.. was womdering the french flour you are refering to is 00 flour? and mixing with machine help to achieve the pillow like crumb?

The French flour is from King Arthur Flour and is a low protein flour but not as low as 00 with a different ashe content.

You can read more about it on their website. It's great for French style baguettes and any bread you want a soft crumb but it has more elasticity than the 00 style flours. I don't know who much the machine really helps but I'm sure you can do a hand mixed version as well and still get great results. The hydration is over 80% in this formula so that has a lot to do with the open and light crumb but I'm sure the intensive mixing helps pump some air in the dough as well.

Didn't take you long to get back into baking. I imagine it is what helps ground you back at home after being gone so long. I admire anyone who has to travel as part of their job and remain sane. My husband used to travel and would be gone a week at a time. He gave that up years ago....I am glad he did. It was hard on all of us.

Lovely bread. One that is kinda on my list but I have avoided it because I am sure my results won't be any where near how a true pugliese is due to my use of 100% whole grains. When I have tried high HL doughs like cibatta I get Frisbees as results so I have veered into safer HL territory.

I'm sure if you experiment you can come up with a mix of flours that will be more to your liking. The Kamut is certainly i believe a whole grain type flour which works real well…. Anyway it is nice to be home and back to baking. I took off Monday and spent most of it baking which was nice. Now to get outside this weekend and start the cleanup in the gardens.

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